US Open Week, Part One: Tiger Woods

It’s THAT time of the golf season, again. This week the greatest major of them all will be held at the prestigious Pebble Beach Golf Links, with a full cast of the Tour’s best players (oh wait, that’s right, a couple of them failed to qualify. oh well). All week long (and hopefully thru the weekend) Tuna Golf will provide a plethora of US Open material of the past and present to insure none one feels left out (I’m staring at you, old man). Because we’ll be damned if some worldwide futbol event ruins one of ‘Merica’s famous pastimes.

Spencer opened this week with a course review of one of the most difficult tracks I’ve yet to come across. This is surely fitting since US Open courses are notoriously prepped with greens like concrete, 8′ deep rough, and lengthened to such a degree that only Magellan would truly appreciate the course’s layout. So to kick things off, we’re going to briefly look at a couple circulating story lines regarding the hot topic and the 2000, 2002, and 2008 Open champ, Tiger Woods.

Tiger hasn’t exactly been burning up the golf courses since his return to golf, yet he’s still considered a favorite.

Well, no shit. This topic seems to arise every week and people like to dig and dig in search of what could possibly be preventing the once unstoppable Tiger from being well, unstoppable. The answer seems pretty simple to me: he hasn’t been playing much golf over the past seven months. For obvious reasons, he was forced to take a hiatus from the game and he just hasn’t been able to get his swing back to form. Is it mental or is it simply a lack of repetitions? Most likely the answer lies somewhere in between. However, considering his dominance of the last decade and his track record at Pebble Beach, counting him out of this thing seems insanely dumb. Almost as dumb as thinking Michigan can beat Ohio St.

Tiger’s refusal to work with a swing coach during preparation for the US Open only hurts his chances.

Meh… This is just dumb. Will the right swing coach help Tiger get back to where he was a few years ago? Sure. But to that in only a few weeks Tiger would be able to change his swing is ridiculous. Most often times it takes players years to go thru a complete swing change before they experience any kind of success. Even the most physically gifted player on Tour can’t be expected to pull this off in such a short time. Besides, Tiger’s putting is currently the best on tour only he doesn’t have enough rounds to qualify his ranking. Major championships may be won a number of ways, but they are easily and most often lost on the green.

A poor finish by Tiger this week will only further diminish his legacy and chances of catching Nicklaus’ record.

Well, it certainly won’t help him get to 19 major wins. And while there’s plenty of years left in Tiger’s career, missing opportunities as good as this one only make catching Jack that more difficult and pressing later down the road. But it’s silly to believe that the legacy he’s built since coming onto the Tour in ’96 will take any sort of hit over a couple bad years, let alone on damn tournament. Tiger can afford to shut it down completely, never play again, and he would still be in future debates of who is the greatest golfer of all-time. That is a fact, Jack.